Marquette Lawyer 49

1970

Andrew M. Rajec was named Slovak-American of the Year and honored by the Slovak Embassy and the Friends of Slovakia at a gala celebration in Washington, D.C. He is president of the First Catholic Slovak Union of the United States and Canada (FCSU). Under his leadership, FCSU activities have expanded into 27 states, and the organization’s assets have substantially increased. Pictured above (left to right): son, Andrew P. Rajec; Andrew M. Rajec; Peter Kmec, Slovak ambassador to the United States; wife, Ida Rajec; daughter, Idka Rajec; and son, Daniel Rajec.

1973Christine M. Wiseman has been confirmed by the Illinois Senate to serve on the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the state’s coordinating agency, which oversees colleges and universities.

Wiseman has served since 2010 as president of Saint Xavier University in Chicago.

1974William C. Gleisner III was reelected to a three-year term on the Wisconsin Judicial Council. Gleisner, who practices in Waukesha County, has served on the council since 2008.

1976Mark W. Schneider has been appointed a member of the board of directors of Littler Mendelson in Minneapolis. A shareholder and co-chair of the firm’s traditional labor law practice group, he focuses his nationwide

practice on representing management in all phases of labor law and labor relations.

1977Colonel John E. Kosobucki was named Investigator of the Year for 2013 for the Investigations of Senior Officials Directorate, Office of the Inspector General, Department of Defense, in Alexandria, Va. He is retired from the U.S. Army.

1978Jack Lance has retired after more than 31 years as general counsel to the Rockdale County Public Schools, Ga. He and his wife, Glenda, have three grown children and seven grandchildren.

1979Daniel T. Dennehy has been nominated and confirmed as a member of the five-person Milwaukee County Personnel Review Board. He was then elected the board’s new chairperson. Dennehy is a shareholder

with von Briesen & Roper in Milwaukee, where he focuses his practice on employment, personnel, and labor matters.

Maureen H. Hoyle was recently appointed president for the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE), in Washington, D.C., after serving the organization for 31 years. In January, she presented at a

Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee roundtable on strengthening federal access programs. Also in January, she rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on behalf of COE, for which Stefan Jekel, NYSE Euronext’s New York-based team member, presented her with a medallion (above).

Steve A. Laraway, president and CEO of Laraway Financial Advisors, St. Cloud, Minn., recently earned the Chartered Financial Consultant designation from the American College of Financial Services.

1985 Kathy L. Nusslock has been chosen as the chief operating officer of Davis & Kuelthau Milwaukee. She is responsible for overall management of the firm’s operations, including human

resources, facilities management, and oversight of accounting / finance, information technology, and marketing / business development.

1986Thomas G. Cullen, managing attorney for Wisconsin operations for Attorneys’ Title Guaranty Fund, has been promoted to vice president of Wisconsin operations. He serves as in-house legal counsel for the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

1987Laurie J. McLeRoy has joined von Briesen & Roper as a shareholder in the litigation and risk management practice group in the firm’s Milwaukee office.

1988Janet C. Protasiewicz is judge of Branch 24 in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, having been elected this past spring.

1990Noelle C. Muceno has been named as a shareholder in Crivello Carlson’s Milwaukee office, where she practices in the areas of product liability, toxic torts, and general insurance and professional liability.

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50 Fall 2014

Opportunity and strategic vision underlie McEssy’s career and work

BBill McEssy was walking out of a bank

in Fond du Lac, Wis., one day in 1969

when he ran into a guy he knew from

playing recreational baseball. The guy

told McEssy that he was managing a

McDonald’s but wanted to acquire his

own franchise. He didn’t have money

to buy one and asked if McEssy would

join him.

“It was a unique encounter,”

McEssy says—and it changed his life.

McEssy had a successful practice in

Fond du Lac that included family,

real estate, bankruptcy, and criminal

law. His father, also a Marquette

lawyer, was a judge in Fond du Lac,

ultimately serving on the bench for

34 years, and the family was well

established there. “I wasn’t possessed

to give up law practice and go into McDonald’s,”

McEssy recalls.

McEssy is not an impulsive person. He’s loyal to his

family, friends, and employees. He has an easygoing

manner, and he’s fun to talk to, but don’t mistake the

seriousness of his purposes. He’s dedicated to his work

and his involvement in the Catholic Church. And he

thinks strategically—where should things head in the

big picture, and how do we get there?

But bumping into his friend became a turning

point in his life. In 1970, McEssy joined his friend in

buying a McDonald’s franchise in the western Illinois

city of McComb. Through the 1970s, McEssy was a

passive investor as the partnership grew to include

five McDonald’s stores in the Quad Cities region. But

in 1980, McEssy sold his share to his partner, bought

three McDonald’s stores in the Chicago area, left his

law practice, and moved to Lake Forest, Ill., to launch a

business that became the successful McEssy Investments.

P R O F I L E : Bill McEssy, L’64

Step by step, he became one of the largest

McDonald’s owner-operators in the country, with 47

stores, generally in a triangle from north of Chicago

to Milwaukee to Lake Geneva, Wis. He also became

involved in several other business ventures—for one, he

is the largest investor in the recent successful reopening

of Lake Lawn Resort in Delavan, Wis.

As his McDonald’s roster grew, so did McEssy’s

involvement in charitable and community efforts. He

made sure that his stores supported their communities.

In their personal lives, McEssy and his wife, Lois,

became deeply involved in supporting the work of the

Archdiocese of Chicago and especially the University

of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary. He has

been chairman of the seminary’s advisory board for

nine years, and its 880-acre campus now includes the

McEssy Theological Resource Center.

McEssy has earned recognition in both his

professional and personal life this past year, his

Marquette Lawyer 51

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Opportunity and strategic vision underlie McEssy’s career and work

50th since graduating from Marquette Law School. This

includes the McDonald’s Golden Arch Award, the highest

recognition given to franchise owners by the food giant,

and the Francis Cardinal George “Christo Gloria” Award,

given to him and his wife by the Cardinal at the seminary’s

“Evening of Tribute” in Chicago.

Although it has been more than three decades since

he practiced law, McEssy says that his success is grounded

in what he learned in law school and in legal practice.

“I wouldn’t have grown to the largest operator in the region

without my legal background,” he says. “Whatever success

I’ve had started with getting a law degree.” His role leading

an operation that includes more than 2,000 employees calls

on skills in negotiating contracts, setting up and overseeing

corporations, hiring top-notch people for key positions, and

strategic problem solving—all skills he honed as a lawyer.

McEssy got his undergraduate degree from Marquette, where

he met Lois, who was also a student. They married during his

first year in law school and had the first of their three children

during his second year. It was a demanding period, he recalls—

in addition to law school and the baby, he was working full time

at the Schlitz brewery. “But looking back, thank God I did it,” he

said. “It was a good learning experience.”

McEssy has become involved again in Marquette Law School

since a meeting with Dean Joseph D. Kearney during the first

year of his deanship in 2003. McEssy encouraged the plans

for what would become Eckstein Hall. “I was a bit skeptical

initially that this young guy was going to be able to pull this off,

but I told him that he should make sure that the building was

monumental. He persuaded me that he could do it, but, even

so, I wasn’t prepared to be as impressed as I was when I took a

tour of the Law School building.”

Believing in your ability to accomplish great things, and then

proving it—those are things that both describe and appeal to

McEssy. “I’ve never worked for anybody since law school,” he

said. But, with vision, talent, and hard work, he turned a chance

encounter 45 years ago into a launching pad for big success—

both for himself and for serving others.

1991Frank A. Gumina was named a co-leader of Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek’s health care law team. He is a shareholder in the firm’s Milwaukee office and has worked with health care clients for more

than 20 years, developing strategies to meet business objectives.

1992Jason Abraham, of Hupy & Abraham, recently assisted in obtaining a settlement, with payouts of more than $4 million, on behalf of an Illinois biker who was severely injured in a crash with another motor vehicle. Abraham is managing partner in the firm’s Milwaukee office.

1994Barbara Kahn Boxer is managing director of Belle Capital USA, an early-stage angel fund focused on building companies, in underserved capital markets across the country, that have at

least one female founder or C-level executive or are willing to recruit top female talent to their C-suite and board. The fund is on track to raise $25 million by 2016 and has invested in three companies since its inception in November 2012.

Heather L. MacDougall was sworn-in this summer as commissioner of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Nominated by President Obama and

unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she will serve a term expiring in April of 2017. She is the fifth woman to be named as a member in the Review Commission’s 43-year history.

52 Fall 2014

Sally A. Piefer of The Schroeder Group, in Waukesha, Wis., has been elected to the board of directors of Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin (formerly America’s Second Harvest of Wisconsin).

She will serve on the human resources and communications committees. The organization distributes food through a network of 1,000 hunger-relief programs.

Richard C. Rytman was recently appointed director of global security for Chrysler Group in Auburn Hills, Mich.

1995Todd J. Schneider has become a partner in the firm of Froum & Garlovsky in Chicago. His practice is concentrated in the areas of estate planning, trust and estate administration,

charitable planning, and business succession planning, with a significant portion devoted to representing musicians, songwriters, entertainers, and recording artists.

1997Daniel G. Radler, a partner in Quarles & Brady’s Milwaukee office and the national chair of the firm’s intellectual property practice group, has been elected to the firm’s executive committee.

Bradley C. Fulton has assumed the role of president and managing partner of DeWitt Ross & Stevens in Madison.

1998Laurie E. Meyer has joined the Milwaukee office of Davis & Kuelthau as a shareholder on the firm’s labor and employment team. Her prior experience includes practicing labor and employment law and civil litigation at Borgelt, Powell, Peterson & Frauen.

1999Kurt D. Dykstra is community president/senior vice president of Mercantile Bank in Holland, Mich.

Joseph T. Miotke is president-elect of the Wisconsin Intellectual Property Law Association. He was recently included in Intellectual Asset Management magazine’s “IAM Patent 1000,” which recognizes the world’s leading patent practitioners. Miotke is in the Milwaukee office of Dewitt Ross & Stevens.

2000Eryn M. Doherty has been promoted to vice president, labor relations, for Sony Pictures Entertainment, Culver City, Calif.

Rebecca Cameron Valcq was recently appointed as general counsel of Lammi Sports Management in Milwaukee. She was also recently named one of the Milwaukee Business Journal’s “40 Under 40,”

an award recognizing Milwaukee-area individuals under the age of 40 who are making a difference in their professions and communities.

Elizabeth Westlake is with GE Healthcare, in Wauwatosa, Wis., working in commercial operations contracting.

2001David Sauceda recently joined the Bonner Law Firm in Cody, Wyo. Before moving west last year, he practiced in Milwaukee in the areas of family, criminal, probate, and bankruptcy law.

2002Thomas M. Hruz was appointed by Gov. Scott K. Walker to serve as an appellate judge on the District III Court of Appeals. He was previously a partner at Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols in Milwaukee.

George S. Peek has become a shareholder in Crivello Carlson’s Milwaukee office, where he practices in the areas of commercial and business litigation as well as products liability and insurance litigation.

2003Sherry D. Coley has been elected to a two-year term as secretary of the State Bar of Wisconsin. She is a member of the litigation practice group in the Green Bay office of Godfrey & Kahn, as

well as a member of the firm’s product liability and tort practice group.

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SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS NOTES may be emailed to christine.wv@marquette.edu. We are especially interested in accomplishments that do not recur annually. Personal matters such as wedding and birth or adoption announcements are welcome. We update postings of class notes weekly at law.marquette.edu.

Marquette Lawyer 53

P R O F I L E : Barbara O’Brien, L’87

Early steps and perseverance bring long-term success for O’Brien

BBarbara O’Brien is a distance runner, both literally and

figuratively. On the literal side, she has maintained a

demanding exercise regimen for years; she’s run five

marathons. On the figurative side, her professional and

personal lives are models of long-term commitment,

determination, and dedication.

The professional side: When O’Brien was a student at

Marquette Law School in the mid-1980s, she got a job as

a clerk at Borgelt, Powell, Peterson & Frauen, a firm in

downtown Milwaukee specializing in defense work for

insurance companies. Nearly three decades later, she is

still with the firm, with a long record of success.

Her interest in insurance and in business law actually

pre-dates law school. O’Brien grew up in Stevens Point,

Wis., where her father practices business law. O’Brien

got her undergraduate degree from the University of

St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., and decided to get a job

before enrolling in law school. She became a claims

adjuster for an insurance company. She liked the work

and geared her law school course selection toward a

career in the field. She credits Marquette University law

faculty, including Professors James Ghiardi, John Kircher,

and Thomas Hammer, with teaching her skills that have

served her well.

The personal side: While she was a law student, she

met a classmate, Brian Smigelski. They married, and,

together, they’ve stayed on the same paths and in the

same city since, and now have two grown children.

Smigelski, also L’87, specializes in business, construction,

and employment litigation for DeWitt Ross & Stevens, in

its Brookfield office.

“I’m happy,” she says of her career choice and, more

generally, of the way life has worked out. She says that

the Borgelt firm has treated her well, including when

her children were young and she wanted time off or a

schedule that allowed her, for example, to be there when

they got home from elementary school.

The work itself appeals to her. “I do a lot of paper

pushing,” she says, but she likes wading into the details

of insurance policies and finding things that might have

been overlooked. A typical day for her means “taking a

lot of phone calls from clients,” handling depositions, and

working on mediation of cases. The number of cases going

to mediation has increased over the years, she says, as

the costs and risks of trials have increased. “I always tell

the clients that a successful mediation is when no one is

completely happy with the outcome but the clients can live

with the results,” she says.

Six and sometimes seven days a week, O’Brien is

working out by 5:30 a.m., usually at one of the two gyms

to which she belongs, or going for a run with a woman

from work. “I just feel so much better,” she says of her

workouts. “In my next life, I’d like to come back as an

exercise teacher.” She also loves to ski—a pursuit that

interrupted her exercise regimen this year when she tore

ligaments in a knee while skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Now recovered from surgery, she has returned to running.

O’Brien is the president of the Marquette Law Alumni

Association Board this year. She said that she has benefited

from involvement in alumni matters, especially through

meeting Marquette lawyers she didn’t know previously.

“The school has so much to offer everybody, and it’s fun to

be part of it,” she said. One of her priorities: getting alumni

who have not visited Eckstein Hall to see the Law School’s

four-year-old home.

You can expect she’ll pursue that goal with the

persistence of someone who is in it for the long haul.

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54 Fall 2014

As agent, friend, fan, Shiffman is there for players 24 hours a day

P R O F I L E : Andy Shiffman, L’09

YYou’re a professional basketball player, it’s 4 a.m., and

your elbow hurts. Who will listen to you?

Andy Shiffman will. Twenty-four/seven—that’s

Shiffman’s job. And he loves it. His title is director of

basketball operations for Priority Sports & Entertainment.

Less formally, he’s an agent for professional basketball

players, guys in the National Basketball Association, guys

who want to be, guys playing in leagues overseas.

What will he do for them?

“Anything and everything,” he says. When one of

his draft prospects broke his nose, Shiffman arranged

doctors’ appointments, a schedule of workouts, ways

of meeting the client’s needs for food, massages, shoes,

whatever. The heart of the job, of course, lies in getting

good deals for his clients, helping them have good careers.

“Every day I’m talking to NBA teams” on behalf of clients,

Shiffman says.

Shiffman grew up in Memphis as a big sports fan. He

wasn’t good enough at basketball to play it at an elite

level, but that was his number-one sport. He received a

bachelor’s degree from Indiana University in 2006 and

then headed to Marquette Law School. Why? “Sports law

was hugely important for me,” and that was a specialty of

Marquette, home of the National Sports Law Institute.

“I absolutely loved it,” he says of his time in Milwaukee.

His eyes were opened to understanding both law in

general and sports law particularly, and he had close

relationships with faculty members and students. He loved

a job he got keeping statistics for the Milwaukee Bucks.

He graduated in 2009—and things got harder. He

realized that it was very difficult to get a job working

for the front office of an NBA team on its basketball

operations side. He broadened his options and pushed

in every way he could to get into the business. One

important step: He flew to Las Vegas, where the NBA

summer leagues were under way. He talked to anyone

who would listen to him.

On the last day of the summer leagues, an NBA

executive told him to call the coach of the University of

Memphis basketball team. That led to a job in the video

room there. Shiffman kept talking to anyone he could

reach. He lost out on some jobs he really wanted, missed

some breaks, and got some breaks. He had passed the

Tennessee bar and had started working at a law firm in

Memphis when he met an executive of an NBA team

on the street in Memphis. The exec told him he should

contact Mark Bartelstein, CEO of Priority Sports &

Entertainment. Shiffman did, and he called in help from

anyone he could to talk him up to Bartelstein.

It took a few months, but it worked. In March 2012,

Shiffman moved to Chicago, where the agency has an

office. “It shows how far networking can go,” Shiffman

said. “I absolutely love my job; I love Chicago.”

His law degree is an asset, he said, including his

involvement in the firm’s work on arbitration cases.

A lot of skills he developed in law school—negotiating,

making an argument, navigating complex procedures—

are also important in his work, not to mention when

he’s helping players deal with speeding tickets.

As is evident, he does more for the players with

whom he works than just get involved in business

dealings. He even gives them his analysis of their play,

especially using the skills he picked up in basketball

teams’ video rooms. He says he tells them, “I’m your

partner in this; I want it as bad as you do.”

He wants the players to have great careers—and,

for himself, he’s convinced that he is already launched

on one.

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Natalie R. Remington is now lead counsel, United States and Canada Service, for GE Healthcare in Wauwatosa. Her duties include reviewing and advising on changes to health care–related contracts, negotiating the parameters of contracts, reviewing marketing material, assisting with policy compliance, and helping resolve client concerns.

David J. Seno has been elected to a partnership in the Milwaukee office of Foley & Lardner. He focuses on assisting public and private companies with mergers and

acquisitions, strategic alliances, and various commercial transactions, including cross-border transactions.

Rebecca J. Roeker has been appointed by Governor Scott K. Walker as chief legal counsel for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

2004Dawn Drellos-Thompson is practicing business and civil rights law in Naples, Fla. She and her husband are partnering with others in the construction and management of commercial and residential property around the country.

Kirk Pelikan has been promoted to partner in the labor and employment practice group of Michael Best & Friedrich’s Milwaukee office.

2007Angela M. Rust has been promoted to partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson in Appleton. Her practice focuses on health care providers in the areas of regulatory compliance, transactions and

affiliations among providers, bioethics, and value-based reimbursement contracts between providers and commercial insurers, employers, and other health care purchasers.

2008Thomas E. Howard has been reappointed to the standing committee on mental health law of the Illinois State Bar Association. He is a member of the Peoria law office of Howard & Howard.

2009Rebecca H. Mitich is this year’s recipient of the Aspire (Emerging Leader) Award from Wisconsin Commercial Real Estate Women (WCREW). The Aspire Award recognizes a woman in the

commercial real estate industry who, in five years or fewer, through her work, accomplishments, and charitable involvement, has demonstrated that she will be one of the industry’s leaders in years to come. Mitich is an attorney in Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek’s Milwaukee office.

Charles R. Stone has taken a position as an associate in the Beijing office of Reed Smith. He is also an adjunct professor in the business school of Peking University’s Market Economy Academy, where he teaches “Organizational Behavior East and West” in Chinese.

2010Jason K. Roberts recently accepted the position of legal analyst within the international department of Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Indirect Tax in Portland, Ore., where his responsibilities include monitoring and reporting on international tax law changes and trends.

2011Jack Dávila and Victoria David are engaged to be married in August 2015. He is an associate on the litigation team at The Previant Law Firm, Milwaukee, and she is an associate at the

Milwaukee office of Pledl & Cohn. The couple would like to thank Professor Jack Kircher for his creative seating arrangement in the 2008 torts class where they first met.

Thomas I. Guz has recently taken a position with LB&B Associates, a diversified services company located in Columbia, Md., where he is the lead negotiator and arbitrator for more than 30 collective bargaining agreements. He and his wife, Kylie, have two daughters: Lilian, age 2, and Zoey, 1.

2014Kenneth “Sam” Brooks is an associate in the intellectual property practice group of Quarles & Brady’s Milwaukee office. A patent engineer, he focuses his practice on the preparation and

prosecution of patent applications, with particular expertise in the areas of electrical, mechanical, software, and computer engineering.

Hannah A. Rock has joined the law firm of Hansen & Hildebrand, Milwaukee, as an associate. She will concentrate on family law, mediation, and collaborative practice.

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